Even If i Walk Alone

Instructing and encouraging you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus

Faith Requires Work

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How hard are you working at your faith? Are you a lip-service Christian who professes to love Jesus with your speech but fail to back up that claim with any proof? The world around us is spiraling out of control and Western Christianity is not to be found. We stand mostly silent to the atrocities that are occurring on our watch. I am extremely thankful for the people and ministries that have broken out of the trance and are doing their work as the hands and feet of God. For the vast majority of Christians, however, the response is a deafening silence. We’re content to let others do the heavy lifting, convinced that somehow we just don’t feel “led” to participate in that way. I believe much of the rhetoric of “not feeling led is synonymous with “feeling fearful”.

There is no fear in Jesus; neither should there be any fear found in the body of believers who love and trust Him. Many wait to “feel led” or find their “calling” before they will surrender everything to Christ. The fact of the matter is if you choose to follow Christ, you will automatically be led to all the places He goes. By definition, if you are following then you are already being led. To follow Jesus is to be led by Him. When faced with a decision, ask yourself, “Would Jesus go there?” If the answer is ‘yes’, then you are being led there as well. It’s not a matter of whether or not you feel led, because if you are following Christ, you are always being led. It’s really a simple matter of whether or not you will choose to follow.

What about your “calling”? What if you are not yet certain what your calling even is? I have good news; you have already received your calling. As Jesus explained in Matthew 25:31-46, you are called to feed the hungry, care for the sick, clothe those in need, and to shelter the poor. This is the calling of everyone who chooses a life of following Christ. In the modern era, people have come to equate their vocation with their calling. Jesus doesn’t call you to be, for example, a doctor; He calls you to serve. If by becoming a doctor you use your skills to care for the sick, then your vocation is one that can be utilized to live out your calling. Your calling, again, is to serve; whether you render that service as a doctor, a farmer, a janitor or a CEO is irrelevant. Your vocation is simply a means of accomplishing what you are called to do. Do whatever you wish for a vocation as long as it enables you to fulfill your calling to love and serve others.

Do not wait to be led or to be called before surrendering your life completely to God. You are already both led and called. We simply must humbly submit every area of our lives to Him. Then we must follow wherever He leads, and do so without fear or question. Every day of our life must be spent in service to others. Live your life constantly seeking someone whom you might help. Sacrifice that with which you have been blessed in order to give to others. Feed the poor; clothe those in need; give a drink to those who thirst. Your faith in Jesus must never be a spectator sport; it requires work.

Continuing the Mission of Christ

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The mission of Christ did not end when Christ was crucified. It did not end when He rose from the grave. The mission did not end when He ascended into Heaven. In fact, these events were merely the culmination of the kick off! The mission of Jesus will be completed when His kingdom is on earth as it is in Heaven. And so it continues.

The modern evangelical church has lulled us into the belief that Christianity can be boiled down to attending a service on Sundays, putting the appropriate amount of money into the plate and telling someone about Jesus every now and then. The “super Christians” even live by an unusually high moral code and spend a seemingly inordinate amount of time in prayer. The more I study and learn, the more I ask myself, “What Bible are they reading anyway?” Jesus did not come to establish a glorified social club, a place we could go to make us feel better about ourselves or simply to be entertained. This was not, and is not, the mission of Jesus Christ. Do any of us really believe that Jesus endured what He did in order that we might pursue lives of comfort and affluence?

Look around you; is the world beginning to look like the Kingdom of God here on earth? Does it look more like the Kingdom today than it did 10 years ago? The answer to both questions is an obvious and resounding, “No!” So if the mission of Christ is for His kingdom to be at home on earth, why is it that we are continually moving ever further from that goal? The uncomfortable answer is that we have become satisfied with the comforts and conveniences of a world ruled by Satan. We are residing in the camp of the enemy, and we like it. What other conclusion may one draw?

As long as there are starving children, as long as there are those without a home, as long as selfishness and greed run rampant through our streets, the mission of Christ is not yet complete. We have chosen to be followers of Jesus. This is a volunteer role, one we have accepted by choice and are free to reject at any time. I pray that you hold fast to your decision and will choose to not just follow Him at a distance, but to run alongside of Jesus as you carry out His mission. If we would remain His followers, then His path is our path. His mission is our mission.

Wake from the slumber into which we’ve been lulled. Cast off the chains that keep us beholden to the comforts of society. Pray ferocious prayers that the will of God will indeed be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Take action whenever and however you can to see that the hungry are fed, the needy are clothed and the homeless are sheltered. Give all that you have so that others may in turn experience the freedom, the joy and the ecstasy of the love of Jesus. This is the mission to which we have all been called. This is the purpose and the meaning of life. On this day, at this moment, how will you respond?

Which Parts of the Bible Do You Ignore?

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In my reading this week I was challenged by a question that, on its face, seemed ludicrous. Yet I could neither ignore it nor get it out of my head. The question was, “Which parts of the Bible are you choosing to ignore?” It was preposterous in both its implication that I would even think of picking and choosing parts of the Bible to ignore, and also by the insinuation that I indeed was ignoring parts of the Bible. I have been diligently striving to follow in the way of Jesus Christ, to do the things that He would do. That involves not allowing any compromise along the way. So how could I possibly be ignoring parts of the Bible, much less by conscious choice? This story, however, does not have a happy ending. Prayer and introspection revealed that indeed I have been ignoring parts of the Bible. In fact, I have been ignoring multiple parts of Scripture. This realization has been both sobering and challenging. Allow me to share a couple of areas I have been choosing to ignore.

The second greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:28-31). I do my best to show kindness to my neighbors. I always smile and wave whenever I see them outside. In the winter I even clear their driveways and sidewalks with my snow blower. Therefore, I must be demonstrating love to my neighbor. So apparently I can check this box with an affirmative. Or can I? I am ashamed to admit, I’ve never invited one of my current neighbors over for dinner; I’ve never stopped over just to see if I can help in any way. I’m a great neighbor as long as we happen to be outside at the same time. Otherwise it takes a little work, and apparently that’s been a bit too much for me. For those who are way ahead of me at this point and are still content that they can easily check off the “love my neighbor as myself” box, let me ask you a question. Have you, like a great number of Americans, purchased one of the new, large, flat screen televisions in the past couple of years? If you answered yes to that question, did you purchase one for your neighbor as well? If not, why not? Do you not love your neighbor at least as much as you love yourself? In the interest of full disclosure, I picked the flat screen television example because I don’t have one. I figured that was fair since I took my lumps in the first half of this paragraph. How about groceries? When you purchase food each week, do you purchase a bag for your neighbor as well? I hope you see my point.

Most of us do just enough to make us believe we are doing what Jesus commanded us to do. But when we look a little deeper, if we’re honest with ourselves, we will be forced to admit that we are indeed ignoring parts of the Bible. We ignore that which makes us uncomfortable or requires too great a sacrifice. We give money to those in need, but will we sell all we have and then turn around and give all the proceeds to the poor (Luke 18:18-22)? We’ll volunteer at the soup kitchen, but will we take a stranger in to live with us (Matthew 25:35)? We are ignoring the parts of the Bible that most reflect the mission of Jesus. How dare we call ourselves disciples? We are at best a weak and hypocritical people. The Church is supposed to be the unified body, the very hands and feet, of Jesus. We are to be ushering in His Kingdom by doing the things He commanded us to do while we are still on this earth. We are only half committed; we speak the language but we fail in the execution of the plan.

We must all repent of the parts of the Bible we have ignored out of our selfish sense of comfort. If we would indeed be a follower of Christ, we must look again at what He expects of us. We must look again at the way He lived and the things He did. We must repent of the words He spoke that we have ignored. It is time to rise up as the body of Christ and leave behind the half-hearted effort most of us have given to this point; it is time to work in unison to accomplish the mission of Jesus. As you prayerfully consider the way in which you will live for Him, give fresh consideration to the parts of the Bible you have been choosing to ignore.

What does it mean to be a Christian?

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Since we talk so much about Christianity here, I thought it might be worthwhile for some to take a step back and define what being a Christian actually entails. Christianity in the traditional sense simply means one who is a follower of Christ. In modern evangelical terms (if you are new to Christianity, you’ll find we have A LOT of terms), a Christian is defined as someone who has prayed “the sinner’s prayer” and accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. My purpose is not to find fault with either definition, but rather to elaborate on them, with an emphasis on what Jesus commanded of His followers.

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Poverty in America

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Last night I attended a photo exhibit called “Fighting for the Forgotten”, an event sponsored in conjunction with AmericanPoverty.org. Several photo journalists from around the country have been photographing the poor in America. The pictures were both sobering and heartbreaking. America is the richest nation in the world and has more churches and ministries than any other country. I discovered last night that I live in the 4th most affluent county in America (Who knew… and how the heck did they let me in?). Yet even in my county, the poverty rate is nearly 5% (source). In America the poverty rate is greater than 15% (source). By many estimates, the percentage of those living in poverty has already hit 20%; that’s one out of every 5 families that are living in, or very close to, poverty. How can we who claim to be followers of Christ sit on the sidelines and watch this happen? God forgive us for our apathy and hardened hearts when it comes to our response to the poor.

People in poverty are no different from you or me. The only thing we have that they don’t is a larger bank account. God loves each and every homeless or hurting individual exactly as much as He loves us. He longs to hold them and talk to them in the same way that He longs to hold and talk to us. We are blessed beyond compare and beyond explanation. God doesn’t play favorites. He hasn’t chosen some to live in poverty and some to live in plenty. He has chosen all to live in love, and He has chosen all to live in community, caring for the needs of one another. There are individuals in America today who preach what is often termed a “prosperity gospel”. They teach that God wants you to be wealthy, and that if we simply do what Jesus commands, we will be financially rich. Those who aren’t obviously aren’t yet right with God. Nothing could be further from Scriptural truth and it insults the poor that Jesus told us would always be among us. Christ taught that whatever we do for the poor, we do for Him. Jesus obviously did not come preaching a prosperity gospel. My point is that our culture, and even our churches, teaches us to look down on the poor. We have been conditioned to think of those in poverty as lazy, addicts, people far from God’s will.

Actually they are indeed far from God’s will, but not of their own doing (in most cases). God never wanted this for His children. He created them to live in perfect unity and fellowship with Him. We messed this up in the Garden of Eden, and we continue to mess it up today. We make bad choices, destructive decisions that lead to a downward spiral in our fallen world. Yet He still loves us and wants the best for us. He wants to reach out and help us, to walk with us. We are His hands that must reach out to the poor, and we are His feet that must walk with them through the hard times of their life. We are God’s people, Kingdom citizens called to care for the widow and the orphan, to feed the hungry and clothe those in need. The poor are not less than we are; they are greater than we are. Jesus proclaimed that the last will be first, and always gave special attention to the poor both in word and in deed.

It is our job, indeed our mission, to eradicate poverty. We are commanded to give to anyone in need. Don’t worry about tomorrow or think of setting something back for the future. The need is now; it’s all around us, and it is growing. One day we will have to give an account for how we utilized the resources God has given us. What will our excuse be then? Give out of your abundance; give out of your lack of abundance. Whatever you do, you must give; give of yourself, your time and your money. Poverty in our nation and throughout the world has reached staggering proportions. We cannot win a battle in which we will not engage. Don’t turn away from those in poverty. Don’t reject the call of Christ to care for the poor. Don’t keep the good news of His true Gospel to yourself. It has to start somewhere, it has to start some time, and it has to start with someone. Why not here, why not now, and why not you or me?